Hard Cases
15 official Murdoku hard cases. Click any case for details including scene description, key mechanics, and strategy hints.
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9×9 A Messy Situation
An apartment turned completely upside down — drawers yanked out, books swept off shelves, glass shattered across the floor. A burglary gone wrong? Or did someone deliberately create chaos to hide what they were really after? Among the overturned furniture and broken glass, only careful deduction can piece together the truth.
9×9 The Abandoned Museum
A museum shuttered for years, its exhibits left in place beneath a thick coat of dust. An urban exploration crew sneaks in after midnight — in the dinosaur fossil hall, what they find isn't just prehistoric remains, but a body far more recent.
11×11 The Commercial Square
A downtown commercial square, café umbrellas shading crowded tables, pigeons flocking around the fountain. Every shop is busy with the day's trade — but behind the rolled-down shutter of one closed store, a deal has just been settled in a way nobody wanted.
9×9 Date Night
The city's hottest date-night restaurant, candlelight flickering at every table, each one set for a dressed-up couple. Waiters weave between tables balancing trays — and when dessert arrives, everyone notices one couple hasn't spoken a word since the appetizers.
9×9 Grizzly Night
Night settles over a forest campsite, lanterns glowing inside the tents while the dark woods press in from every side. The group came for a quiet outdoor escape, but when a bear is spotted near the clearing, panic sends everyone running — and one camper never makes it back.
9×9 The Remote Village
A remote village sits deep beyond the main road, where a general store, tavern, library, and narrow forest paths hold the whole community together. When the morning fog lifts, one villager is missing from the usual routine, and the quiet settlement starts to feel much smaller.
10×10 Frontier Town
A frontier town is settling into another tense evening, with the chapel doors closed, the bank guarded, and the general store still lit against the dust outside. Somewhere between the porch chairs, horses, cactus patches, and cash register, one resident has turned the town's uneasy silence into a murder scene.
9×10 River Crossing
At a rough river crossing on the frontier, wagons, horses, crates, and cliffs turn a simple passage into a dangerous choke point. When the group reaches the far bank, one traveler is missing, and the outlaw everyone feared may have used the crossing as cover.
10×10 Minigolf
A sunny afternoon at the mini golf course, brightly colored obstacles scattered across the green. A group of friends tee off for a casual round — but by the final hole, someone has taken their last putt.
11×9 Swimming with the Fishes
The city aquarium after closing hours, massive glass tanks glowing an eerie blue in the darkness. The night security guard does one last round — at the bottom of the shark tunnel, what they see silhouetted against the glass isn't marine life. It's someone who will never surface again.
9×9 Blackout
A sudden blackout plunges an entire city block into absolute darkness — every light goes out at once. When emergency generators kick in and flashlight beams cut through the dark, the chaos reveals something chilling: someone used those six minutes of total darkness to do something that could only be understood in broad daylight.
13×13 The Lisbon Book Fair
The Lisbon Book Fair on a warm afternoon, rows of white tents stretching as far as the eye can see, books from every corner of the world on display. Hundreds of readers wander between the stalls — deep in a tent of obscure crime novels, someone hasn't just opened a book. They've stumbled into a real mystery.
12×14 The Hiking Trip
A scenic hiking trail winding through mountain forest, morning mist drifting between the pines. A group of hikers gathers at the trailhead cabin to check in — but the headcount after the hike reveals something unsettling: seven people set out, but only six made it to the end.
12×12 The Botanical Garden
A botanical garden in full bloom, exotic plants from every continent competing for attention. The gardener makes their morning rounds through the greenhouses — in the tropical plant section, among hundreds of species, the one that turned deadly was never supposed to be growing here.
12×12 The Horsetrack
The grandstand roars as horses thunder toward the finish line — odds and bets gripping every spectator's nerves. But deep in the stable area, in the quietest corner of the track, a game far darker than any race has already reached its finish.
